November 11, 2016

Eighth anniversary of this blog

With the idea to raise awareness of the at that time little known phenomenon of art environments on november 11, 2008 I published the first post in a weblog I entitled Outsider Environments Europe.

So today this blog has its eighth anniversary and as in previous years, I will relate here some data (as of november 10) as provided by Blogger's statistics "behind the scenes".

Number of visitors

On november 10, 2015 the all time number of page views was 420.277. On november 10, 2016 it was 583.287 an increase of 163.010 during last year, or on the average 446 visitors a day.

All time pageviews by country

As in previous years here is the all time rank of top ten countries as regards pageviews:

1. United States 177030 (rank 2015: idem)

2 Netherlands 63517 (rank 2015: idem)

3. France 57951 (rank 2015: idem)

4. Germany 46971 (rank 2015: idem)

5 United Kingdom 41398 (rank 2015: idem)

6. Ukraine 20171 (rank 2015: idem)

7. Russia 18496 (rank 2015 idem)

8. Spain 12020 (rank 2015: 9th) 9. Italy 11366 (rank 2015: 8th)

10. Poland 4619 (rank 2015: idem)

As in previous years, the top is rather stable: the same countries appear, almost all in the same order, except Italy and Spain which changed places.

The last time I paid close attention to the phenomenon of art environments in Eastern Europe and the Russian Federation and I feel happy that the interest from people in these countries remains at the same level

The first place for Bill and Elisabeth Charge is without any doubt due to a one time event. End october 2016 the husband of a granddaughter of Bill and Elisabeth posted a message on the Watford Memories and History page on Facebook, asking -with a link to the relevant post in this blog- if anyone remembered the decorated garden. Well, thousands of people did and this resulted in over 5000 hits of the post in a few days time.

This year the top ten of most viewed sites once more is rather stable, with Garcet (from Belgium), Abbé Fouré, Robert Tatin, Facteur Cheval, Bodan Litnianski and Chomo (all from France), Josep Pujiula i Vila en José Maria Garrido (both from Spain) and Karl Junker (from Germany).

Just wanted to take a moment to express thanks for this wonderful website. I refer to it every single time I set off on a road trip here in Europe. It's an invaluable resource both in this aspect, as well as in education about, preservation of, and appreciation for these unique and often overlooked masterworks of visionary art. Thanks so much Mr. van Es!